Lisa DiG > Recent Status Updates

This is the first of Sherlock Holmes. Watson and Holmes meet, which is amusing character development.

Donald Whitney compares meditation to hot water and a tea bag. “Hearing God’s Word is like one dip of the tea bag into the cup. Some of the tea’s flavor is absorbed by the water, but not as much as would occur with a more thorough soaking of the bag…. [Meditation] is like immersing the bag completely and letting it steep until all the rich tea flavor has been extracted.”

His use of logic is always enthymemic, as is common to ordinary life & conversation. His points are, with respect to logical explicitness, understated & underdeveloped. The significance is…it enlists the minds of the hearers from the inside in a way that full & explicit statement of argument cannot do… Jesus’ aim in utilizing logic is not to win battles, but to achieve understanding or insight in his hearers.

Why then is the Bible read only — not meditated on? Because it is not loved. We do not go to it, as the hungry man to his food, as the miser to his treasure. The loss is incalculable. Our superficial knowledge has no practical influence. It is only as we “search”, “that we “know it for our good.”
Job 5:27

“Let us turn our complaints into prayers, and the Lord will quickly turn them into praises.”

All the Christmas stories I’ve been listening to this season come from this one collection. If anyone is interested in a one stop shopping for Christmas stories this is a delightful collection.

Chapter 12 - Jesus had to come if there was to be peace with God. Because only someone who could “reach God” could establish peace.

“Man cannot teach what he does not know; and of God, and of His law, he knows nothing. Therefore the beginning of wisdom is a consciousness of ignorance, a distrust of our own understanding, and the heartfelt prayer - ‘Give me understanding.’”

This is painful to read if you know someone with dementia. But it is helpful. And although just a few pages in, I highly recommend.

This the wisest saints are only students in the Divine school.

You are good; and do good. Teach me your statues. Vs 68

Nothing is goodness in our eyes, that crosses our own inclination. We can hardly bear to hear of the cross, much less to take it up. We talk of goodness, but yield to discontent. We do not profess to dislike trial-only the trial now pressing upon us-any other cross than this; that is, my will and wisdom rather than God's. Is there not great need of this prayer

Vs 66: Teach me good judgment and knowledge; that, in  the simplicity of faith, I may be blessed with a tender conscience, and be delivered from the bondage of a scrupulous, and from the perplexity of an unenlightened, conscience. Let my heart never condemn me where it ought not. Let it never fail to condemn me where it ought. 

The only hope of the world is if the light shines and the salt does not lose its saltiness. What a useful book for our time.

He speaks of the importance of reforming the church at the time of the Reformation. No truer now. The church needs a second reformation.

Polycarp before his martyrdom at 86 years old:

For we are not accustomed to repent of what is good to adopt that which is bad.

Episode 9: Painful, like watching the devil in the Garden of Eden.

Thus the Lord can never be enjoyed, even by His own children-except as a portion- not only above all, but in the place of all. Other objects indeed may be subordinately loved: but of none but Himself must we say-"He is altogether lovely." "In all things He must have the preeminence"- …The moment that any rival is allowed to usurp the throne of the heart, we open the door to disappointment and unsatisfied desires.

True it is, that the corrupt and rebellious inclinations will "lust" to the end. But as long as indulgence is denied, conflict excited, and the constant endeavor maintained to "bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ," our liberty is established, even where it is not always enjoyed.

Heavenly, gracious Father! who and what are we, that our hearts should be made the unworthy recipients of Your grace? that our will should be subdued into "the obedience of faith?" and that we should be permitted to anticipate that blessed period, when we shall "keep Your law continually, forever and ever?" May this prospect realize the happiness of our present obedience!